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The Supreme Court Weighs ObamaCare
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Leroy N. Soetoro
Mar 23, 2012, 4:32:28 AM3/23/12
to
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304636404577291883293776326.
html?mod=googlenews_wsj
On Monday, the Supreme Court will begin an extraordinary three-day hearing
on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At stake are the Constitution's
structural guarantees of individual liberty, which limit governmental
power and ensure political accountability by dividing that power between
federal and state authorities. Upholding ObamaCare would destroy this
dual-sovereignty system, the most distinctive feature of American
constitutionalism.
ObamaCare mandates that every American, with a few narrow exceptions, have
a congressionally defined minimum level of health-insurance coverage.
Noncompliance brings a substantial monetary penalty. The ultimate purpose
of this "individual mandate" is to force young and healthy middle-class
workers to subsidize those who need more coverage.
Congress could have achieved this wealth transfer in perfectly
constitutional ways. It could simply have imposed new taxes to pay for a
national health system. But that would have come with a huge political
price tag that neither Congress nor the president was prepared to pay.
Instead, Congress adopted the individual mandate, invoking its power to
regulate interstate commerce. The uninsured, it reasoned, still use health
services (for which some do not pay) and therefore have an impact on
commerce, which Congress can regulate.
Congress's reliance on the Commerce Clause to support the individual
mandate was politically expedient but constitutionally deficient.
Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce is broad but not
limitless.
First among the limits is the very nature of congressional authority,
which is based on specifically enumerated powers. As the Supreme Court has
consistently acknowledged, the Constitution denies the federal government
the type of broad public health and welfare regulatory authority known as
a "general police power," which is reserved exclusively to the states. The
court has also repeatedly held that preservation of this division between
federal and state authority is a matter for supervision by the courts, and
its precedents make clear that congressional Commerce Clause regulation
must be subject to some judicially enforceable limiting principle.
The defining characteristic of a general police power is the states'
ability to regulate people simply as people, regardless of an individual's
activities or interaction with goods or services that might themselves be
subject to regulation. Thus, the Supreme Court has ruled that states,
exercising their general police power, can require all resident adults to
obtain a smallpox vaccination. Only this type of authority could support
ObamaCare's individual mandate, which applies to all Americans as such,
regardless of any goods they may buy or own, or any activities in which
they might choose to engage.
Congress has crossed a fundamental constitutional line. Neither the fact
that every individual has some discernible impact on the economy, nor that
virtually everyone will at some point in time use health-care services, is
a sufficient basis for federal regulation. Both of these arguments,
advanced by ObamaCare's defenders, are flawed because they admit no
judicially enforceable limiting principle marking the outer bounds of
federal authority.
On the left and right, legal thinkers too often forget that Congress has
no constitutional power simply to regulate the economy. Rather, that power
comes from a series of discrete authorities葉o regulate interstate and
foreign commerce, to tax, spend and borrow, to coin money and fix its
value and so forth葉hat together allow it broad control over the nation's
economic affairs. As a result, congressional efforts to address national
problems may well be less economically efficient than would a more
straightforward exercise of police power. The Constitution subordinates
efficiency to guarantee liberty.
The Constitution divides governmental power between federal and state
governments so that one may check the other. This requires that the
electorate be able to tell, especially on Election Day, which government
is responsible for which policies and regulations with which we live.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in one leading Commerce Clause case,
United States v. Lopez (1995): "The theory that two governments accord
more liberty than one [emphasis added] requires for its realization two
distinct and discernible lines of political accountability: one between
the citizens and the Federal Government; the second between the citizens
and the States." Congress's use of its commerce power in passing ObamaCare
eradicates those "discernible lines of political accountability."
Even so, Congress's enumerated powers support a vast and ever growing
regulatory state, much of it based upon the Commerce Clause. Neither that
Leviathan, nor the Supreme Court's precedents upholding it, is now at
issue.
Justice Antonin Scalia explained in another of the Supreme Court's recent
Commerce Clause cases, Gonzales v. Raich (2005), that the power to
regulate interstate commerce, especially in conjunction with the power "to
make all laws which shall be necessary and proper [emphasis added] for
carrying into execution" its enumerated powers, gives Congress broad
authority to reach even local and non-commercial activities when necessary
to make legitimate regulatory schemes effective. Raich upheld federal
control of purely local cultivation, sale and use of marijuana, and it is
often incorrectly cited as support for the individual mandate.
But the Necessary and Proper Clause does not guarantee Congress whatever
power it would like to reach its policy goals. That provision supports
only otherwise legitimate exercises of Congress's enumerated powers. So
under the Commerce Clause, Congress can try to achieve universal coverage
through regulating the interstate health-care insurance market, as
ObamaCare does, by requiring insurance companies operating in that market
to cover pre-existing conditions. Then under the Necessary and Proper
clause, Congress could also require employers to collect data on pre-
existing conditions from new hires so insurers can better plan.
Requiring all Americans to have health insurance may well create a new
revenue stream for insurance companies so as to lessen these new burdens
on them, but it does nothing to make these new coverage requirements
effective regulations of interstate commerce as the Supreme Court uses
that term. In particular, the individual mandate does not prevent
avoidance or evasion of these new insurance regulations. Nor does it make
compliance easier to police, as was the case in Raich. There, the ability
to regulate local marijuana production and use was necessary to make its
interstate regulation effective because, as Justice Scalia noted, the
homegrown variety "is never more than an instant from the interstate
market."
Unlike the regulations at issue in Raich, the individual mandate applies
regardless of anyone's interaction with a commodity, service or other
activity, like the interstate sale or transport of marijuana, that
Congress can legitimately regulate. Put another way, the Controlled
Substances Act is about the regulation of drugs, not people. It affects
individuals only to the extent that they interact with the substances it
proscribes, and it can be avoided by simply avoiding those substances.
Americans cannot escape the individual mandate by any means because it
regulates them as people, simply because they are alive and here. That
requires police power authority. Permitting Congress to exercise that
authority揺owever important its ultimate goal擁s not constitutionally
proper and would forever warp the federal-state division of authority.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are lawyers who served in the Justice Department
during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. They represented
the 26 states in their challenge to ObamaCare before the trial and
appellate courts.
--
Obama's black racist USAG appointee.
Eric Holder, racist black United States Attorney General drops voter
intimidation charges against the Black Panthers, "You are about to be
ruled by the black man, cracker!"
Eric Holder, prejudiced black United States Attorney General settles the
hate crime debate, "Whites Not Protected by Hate Crime Laws."
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New
York's million dollar tax evasion.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder, committed treason by knowingly and
deliberately arming enemies of the United States of America through
Operation Fast and Furious. Complicit in the murder of Federal employees
during the execution of their duties.
--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---
html?mod=googlenews_wsj
On Monday, the Supreme Court will begin an extraordinary three-day hearing
on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At stake are the Constitution's
structural guarantees of individual liberty, which limit governmental
power and ensure political accountability by dividing that power between
federal and state authorities. Upholding ObamaCare would destroy this
dual-sovereignty system, the most distinctive feature of American
constitutionalism.
ObamaCare mandates that every American, with a few narrow exceptions, have
a congressionally defined minimum level of health-insurance coverage.
Noncompliance brings a substantial monetary penalty. The ultimate purpose
of this "individual mandate" is to force young and healthy middle-class
workers to subsidize those who need more coverage.
Congress could have achieved this wealth transfer in perfectly
constitutional ways. It could simply have imposed new taxes to pay for a
national health system. But that would have come with a huge political
price tag that neither Congress nor the president was prepared to pay.
Instead, Congress adopted the individual mandate, invoking its power to
regulate interstate commerce. The uninsured, it reasoned, still use health
services (for which some do not pay) and therefore have an impact on
commerce, which Congress can regulate.
Congress's reliance on the Commerce Clause to support the individual
mandate was politically expedient but constitutionally deficient.
Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce is broad but not
limitless.
First among the limits is the very nature of congressional authority,
which is based on specifically enumerated powers. As the Supreme Court has
consistently acknowledged, the Constitution denies the federal government
the type of broad public health and welfare regulatory authority known as
a "general police power," which is reserved exclusively to the states. The
court has also repeatedly held that preservation of this division between
federal and state authority is a matter for supervision by the courts, and
its precedents make clear that congressional Commerce Clause regulation
must be subject to some judicially enforceable limiting principle.
The defining characteristic of a general police power is the states'
ability to regulate people simply as people, regardless of an individual's
activities or interaction with goods or services that might themselves be
subject to regulation. Thus, the Supreme Court has ruled that states,
exercising their general police power, can require all resident adults to
obtain a smallpox vaccination. Only this type of authority could support
ObamaCare's individual mandate, which applies to all Americans as such,
regardless of any goods they may buy or own, or any activities in which
they might choose to engage.
Congress has crossed a fundamental constitutional line. Neither the fact
that every individual has some discernible impact on the economy, nor that
virtually everyone will at some point in time use health-care services, is
a sufficient basis for federal regulation. Both of these arguments,
advanced by ObamaCare's defenders, are flawed because they admit no
judicially enforceable limiting principle marking the outer bounds of
federal authority.
On the left and right, legal thinkers too often forget that Congress has
no constitutional power simply to regulate the economy. Rather, that power
comes from a series of discrete authorities葉o regulate interstate and
foreign commerce, to tax, spend and borrow, to coin money and fix its
value and so forth葉hat together allow it broad control over the nation's
economic affairs. As a result, congressional efforts to address national
problems may well be less economically efficient than would a more
straightforward exercise of police power. The Constitution subordinates
efficiency to guarantee liberty.
The Constitution divides governmental power between federal and state
governments so that one may check the other. This requires that the
electorate be able to tell, especially on Election Day, which government
is responsible for which policies and regulations with which we live.
As Justice Anthony Kennedy explained in one leading Commerce Clause case,
United States v. Lopez (1995): "The theory that two governments accord
more liberty than one [emphasis added] requires for its realization two
distinct and discernible lines of political accountability: one between
the citizens and the Federal Government; the second between the citizens
and the States." Congress's use of its commerce power in passing ObamaCare
eradicates those "discernible lines of political accountability."
Even so, Congress's enumerated powers support a vast and ever growing
regulatory state, much of it based upon the Commerce Clause. Neither that
Leviathan, nor the Supreme Court's precedents upholding it, is now at
issue.
Justice Antonin Scalia explained in another of the Supreme Court's recent
Commerce Clause cases, Gonzales v. Raich (2005), that the power to
regulate interstate commerce, especially in conjunction with the power "to
make all laws which shall be necessary and proper [emphasis added] for
carrying into execution" its enumerated powers, gives Congress broad
authority to reach even local and non-commercial activities when necessary
to make legitimate regulatory schemes effective. Raich upheld federal
control of purely local cultivation, sale and use of marijuana, and it is
often incorrectly cited as support for the individual mandate.
But the Necessary and Proper Clause does not guarantee Congress whatever
power it would like to reach its policy goals. That provision supports
only otherwise legitimate exercises of Congress's enumerated powers. So
under the Commerce Clause, Congress can try to achieve universal coverage
through regulating the interstate health-care insurance market, as
ObamaCare does, by requiring insurance companies operating in that market
to cover pre-existing conditions. Then under the Necessary and Proper
clause, Congress could also require employers to collect data on pre-
existing conditions from new hires so insurers can better plan.
Requiring all Americans to have health insurance may well create a new
revenue stream for insurance companies so as to lessen these new burdens
on them, but it does nothing to make these new coverage requirements
effective regulations of interstate commerce as the Supreme Court uses
that term. In particular, the individual mandate does not prevent
avoidance or evasion of these new insurance regulations. Nor does it make
compliance easier to police, as was the case in Raich. There, the ability
to regulate local marijuana production and use was necessary to make its
interstate regulation effective because, as Justice Scalia noted, the
homegrown variety "is never more than an instant from the interstate
market."
Unlike the regulations at issue in Raich, the individual mandate applies
regardless of anyone's interaction with a commodity, service or other
activity, like the interstate sale or transport of marijuana, that
Congress can legitimately regulate. Put another way, the Controlled
Substances Act is about the regulation of drugs, not people. It affects
individuals only to the extent that they interact with the substances it
proscribes, and it can be avoided by simply avoiding those substances.
Americans cannot escape the individual mandate by any means because it
regulates them as people, simply because they are alive and here. That
requires police power authority. Permitting Congress to exercise that
authority揺owever important its ultimate goal擁s not constitutionally
proper and would forever warp the federal-state division of authority.
Messrs. Rivkin and Casey are lawyers who served in the Justice Department
during the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations. They represented
the 26 states in their challenge to ObamaCare before the trial and
appellate courts.
--
Obama's black racist USAG appointee.
Eric Holder, racist black United States Attorney General drops voter
intimidation charges against the Black Panthers, "You are about to be
ruled by the black man, cracker!"
Eric Holder, prejudiced black United States Attorney General settles the
hate crime debate, "Whites Not Protected by Hate Crime Laws."
Nancy Pelosi, Democrat criminal, accessory before and after the fact, to
former House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Charles B. Rangel of New
York's million dollar tax evasion.
Barack Obama and Eric Holder, committed treason by knowingly and
deliberately arming enemies of the United States of America through
Operation Fast and Furious. Complicit in the murder of Federal employees
during the execution of their duties.
--- Posted via news://freenews.netfront.net/ - Complaints to ne...@netfront.net ---
bobo fizmarkian
Mar 23, 2012, 8:25:59 PM3/23/12
to
On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 08:32:28 +0000, Leroy N. Soetoro wrote:
> http://online.wsj.com/article/
If the Supreme Court rules that the government can require people to
buy health insurance, then perhaps other health-related issues can be
dealt with....
The Chevy Volt is a car that has strong health implications... If a
person buys a Volt instead of say, a 1 ton pickup, they put out a lot
less in pollutants. Also less in global-warming gases...
People die from things like diesel exhaust, or even particulates from
gasoline engines. As well as other non-particulate pollutants...
A person would go into a Ford dealer, order a 1 ton pickup. Kathleen
Sibelius can run a lottery and X-percent of purchasers of large
vehicles will be delivered a Volt instead of the vehicle they
ordered... Doing this with purchasers of new vehicles will insure it's
only people who can actually pay for a Volt that would be buying one
under this system.
This may well be within her current powers, and in any case should
pass Constituional muster if the healthcare law is upheld....
Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
"commerce", or nothing is.
--
Bobo -
> http://online.wsj.com/article/
SB10001424052702304636404577291883293776326.
> html?mod=googlenews_wsj
>
> On Monday, the Supreme Court will begin an extraordinary three-day
> hearing on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At stake are the
> Constitution's structural guarantees of individual liberty, which limit
<snip>
> html?mod=googlenews_wsj
>
> On Monday, the Supreme Court will begin an extraordinary three-day
> hearing on the constitutionality of ObamaCare. At stake are the
> Constitution's structural guarantees of individual liberty, which limit
If the Supreme Court rules that the government can require people to
buy health insurance, then perhaps other health-related issues can be
dealt with....
The Chevy Volt is a car that has strong health implications... If a
person buys a Volt instead of say, a 1 ton pickup, they put out a lot
less in pollutants. Also less in global-warming gases...
People die from things like diesel exhaust, or even particulates from
gasoline engines. As well as other non-particulate pollutants...
A person would go into a Ford dealer, order a 1 ton pickup. Kathleen
Sibelius can run a lottery and X-percent of purchasers of large
vehicles will be delivered a Volt instead of the vehicle they
ordered... Doing this with purchasers of new vehicles will insure it's
only people who can actually pay for a Volt that would be buying one
under this system.
This may well be within her current powers, and in any case should
pass Constituional muster if the healthcare law is upheld....
Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
"commerce", or nothing is.
--
Bobo -
Boo
Mar 23, 2012, 8:30:53 PM3/23/12
to
the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
any size trailer or not...
--
Boo Fetus Radley, II
Gunner Asch
Mar 24, 2012, 5:26:59 AM3/24/12
to
On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500, Boo <b...@booradley.com> wrote:
>>
>> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
>> "commerce", or nothing is.
>
>
>If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
>the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
>any size trailer or not...
>
Oh...like these pickups, which are commonly seen on the roadways hauling
>>
>> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
>> "commerce", or nothing is.
>
>
>If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
>the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
>any size trailer or not...
>
trailers filled with cars, across country?
A Volt will do the job. Fuck yes!
They will pull these trailers as well!!!
http://pics.adoos.com/304d5d880d705f2d14e6f890591c4dbd-1-3-new-7x16-enclosed-cargo-trailer-oh-ky-ga.jpg
And Grandma and Grandpa will love the Volt!!
http://www.aaat.com/transport/uploaded_images/Pick-up-style-trucks-700758.jpg
http://www.gomra.com/theme/GoMra/uploads/galleryimages/28-pickup%20truck%20&%20trailer%20%28Medium%29.jpg
Im a bit curious though....where on a Volt will you mount the gooseneck
hitch?
Gunner
--
"The danger to America is not Barack Obama but a citizenry
capable of entrusting a man like him with the Presidency.
It will be far easier to limit and undo the follies of an
Obama presidency than to restore the necessary common sense
and good judgment to a depraved electorate willing to have
such a man for their? president.. Blaming the prince of the
fools should not blind anyone to the vast confederacy of
fools that made him their prince".
pyotr filipivich
Mar 24, 2012, 11:58:04 AM3/24/12
to
Boo <b...@booradley.com> on Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500 typed in
misc.survivalism the following:
So, how many bales of hay will fit in (on) a Volt?
--
pyotr filipivich
Watergate didn’t have a body count. Gunwalker has hundreds.
misc.survivalism the following:
--
pyotr filipivich
Watergate didn’t have a body count. Gunwalker has hundreds.
bobby sanders
Mar 24, 2012, 12:06:37 PM3/24/12
to
Gunner Asch wrote:
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500, Boo <b...@booradley.com> wrote:
>
> >> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
> >> "commerce", or nothing is.
>
> >If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
> >the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
> >any size trailer or not...
>
> Oh...like these pickups, which are commonly seen on the roadways hauling
> trailers filled with cars, across country?
>
> A Volt will do the job. Fuck yes!
>
> They will pull these trailers as well!!!
>
> http://pics.adoos.com/304d5d880d705f2d14e6f890591c4dbd-1-3-new-7x16-e...
> On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500, Boo <b...@booradley.com> wrote:
>
> >> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
> >> "commerce", or nothing is.
>
> >If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
> >the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
> >any size trailer or not...
>
> Oh...like these pickups, which are commonly seen on the roadways hauling
> trailers filled with cars, across country?
>
> A Volt will do the job. Fuck yes!
>
> They will pull these trailers as well!!!
>
>
> And Grandma and Grandpa will love the Volt!!
>
> http://www.aaat.com/transport/uploaded_images/Pick-up-style-trucks-70...
> And Grandma and Grandpa will love the Volt!!
>
>
> http://www.gomra.com/theme/GoMra/uploads/galleryimages/28-pickup%20tr...
>
> Im a bit curious though....where on a Volt will you mount the gooseneck
> hitch?
>
If you can't afford to pay cash on the barrel head for a doctor, you
> Im a bit curious though....where on a Volt will you mount the gooseneck
> hitch?
>
should just fuck off and die.
Why should my insurance premiums pay for your upkeep just because
you're an unhealthy fuckwit who thinks that the sauce on a Big Mac is
a vegetable when we all know that Pizza is.
I bet that you're a free market hating socialist who wants the
government to save you from high gas prices that cost big on your
union made truck.
bobo fizmarkian
Mar 24, 2012, 2:26:59 PM3/24/12
to
might carry a couple more.
Anyway, hay is for feeding captive animals, which Sibelius probably can
end too... Free the cows, and people become vegetarians...
The Volt could probably even be adapted to use as a tractor.. They did
that with the Model T.
Ultimately, everything relates to health, so the government therefore has
all power... Or everything relates to commerce.. No limits...
--
Bobo -
Dan
Mar 25, 2012, 4:54:46 PM3/25/12
to
On 3/24/2012 8:58 AM, pyotr filipivich wrote:
> Boo<b...@booradley.com> on Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500 typed in
> misc.survivalism the following:
>> On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:25:59 -0500, bobo fizmarkian wrote:
>>
>>> This may well be within her current powers, and in any case should pass
>>> Constituional muster if the healthcare law is upheld....
>>>
>>> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
>>> "commerce", or nothing is.
>>
>>
>> If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
>> the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
>> any size trailer or not...
>
> So, how many bales of hay will fit in (on) a Volt?
What kind of idiot would buy a Volt to haul hay? Only a Republican...
> Boo<b...@booradley.com> on Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:30:53 -0500 typed in
> misc.survivalism the following:
>> On Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:25:59 -0500, bobo fizmarkian wrote:
>>
>>> This may well be within her current powers, and in any case should pass
>>> Constituional muster if the healthcare law is upheld....
>>>
>>> Further, aside from health issues, cars and trucks are clearly
>>> "commerce", or nothing is.
>>
>>
>> If the person who intended to buy a pickup needs to haul stuff, perhaps
>> the Volt can pull a small stake trailer? Don't know if they're rated for
>> any size trailer or not...
>
> So, how many bales of hay will fit in (on) a Volt?
Dan
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